Essay Comparing The Kittens Wedding And The Muskrats

“The Kittens’ Wedding” by Walter Potter and “The Muskrats” by Carl Akeley are taxidermy dioramas that were created with the intent to attract the audience’s attention to the dioramas’ narratives, however, while portraying a particular narrative posed by dead animals, they ultimately convey the separation that people have created between humans and nature. Ever since the Industrial Revolution, natural history dioramas arose in the late 1800s. These displays consist of taxidermied animals animated in mid-action, props in the foreground, and painted panoramic backgrounds (Barclay, 2016). Akeley created the first natural history taxidermy diorama in 1890, “The Muskrats,” which was an idea that was proposed by a schoolteacher named Daniel Elliot
Potter started his obsession with taxidermy at age 15 in 1835 when he taxidermied his pet canary. Soon after, he become intrigued by his sister’s nurse rhyme books and started incorporating the rhymes into his taxidermy work (Milgroom, 2010). One of his most famous works, also his last work, is his diorama “The Kittens’ Wedding.” With 20 kittens lined up in attendance to a wedding, this work, and like many of Potter’s other works, has a cute but creepy factor. Although both of these dioramas were created for the pleasure of the public and to be enjoyed at their disposal, there’s an eerie and unsettling feeling when really examining the history behind these exhibits; In “The Kittens’ Wedding,” dead, baby kittens are lined up to display a ceremony of rejoicing and beginning of a new life while in “The Muskrats,” the dead muskrats are placed into idealized wildlife that reflects their time when they were alive. Even though Akeley’s intentions to enlighten education and Potter’s to appeal to audiences through interpretations of nursery rhymes, these taxidermists created atmospheres inside glass and wooden containers that are easily distinguishable from